 Ed Garren, a long-time Wehoan, now lives on Hayden Island in Oregon. By Ryan Gierach. |
I recently had another "near miss" on the dating scene. What started out as a promising relationship deteriorated as his history with drugs and other self destructive behavior became too obvious to ignore. When we talk about the epidemic of drug use in the Gay male community, it helps to remember the litter of broken hearts left along the way, sometimes of mountainous proportions.
It seems universal to gay life these days. Even my best looking friends, porn star handsome, and flush with assets and cash, report the same relationship nightmares, all related to alcohol and drug addiction.
As much as this happens in the Gay male community, it seems much more akin to the human condition. Straight friends report much the same issues, just not always as dramatic or extreme.
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Due to arrested development, and the back packs of pain we all carry, success in intimate relationships is very elusive these days.
The pain we carry is often not just our own, but that of our parents and grandparents as well.
 Photo by Mikel Gerle. |
In Family Systems therapy, we look at patterns of intimacy, developed over childhood, and consider all of the cumulative learned behavior for the past three generations. The prior generations also factor in, but are usually difficult to trace. It is truly "the sins of the fathers" being transmitted onto the children and the children's children.
So it's important to look back 75 to 90 years ago, to see who our grandparents were, and the world they created to attempt to nurture our parents, who in turn attempted to nurture us.
It's particularly important if we want to have successful intimate relationships and/or bring up reasonably healthy children.
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Nowhere does this stuff pop out more than during the holidays. The whole concept of "family" becomes painfully obvious at this time. The suicide rate, mental hospital admissions, and other mental health markers always go up this time of year. As much as we are implored to "give Thanks", we often end up feeling resentful, and being reminded of all that life has short changed us on with regard to that elusive concept of "family."
 Photo by Mikel Gerle. |
We learn all of our intimacy skills at home. We learn what we can disclose, what is "safe" and what is not, we learn our communication skills, whether or not we will be listened to and heard, or if we are simply being brushed off. We either learn that we are lovable and that we can be loved for who we are, or we learn the insecurity of only being loved for what we produce and how much we can placate those with power around us.
In many homes, we learn never to be honest or share our true selves. What we learn instead is manipulation, production and deception. Living behind those walls makes for a very empty person, and that emptiness must be filled somewhere, by something.
For Gay men, who often grow up hiding the "big secret", having to constantly deceive our family, our "friends", and act "butch", that empty place can become enormous.
Women have issues with the closet too. But I don't think it's as difficult because of the nature of how men are socialized, and the constant expectation (if not requirement) of men to be competitive with each other.
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So, our little boy grows up with a big sense of not being good enough. He carries that into all of his relations, and has a real difficult time showing his true self to anyone. Unless he's drunk or on meth, then he doesn't care.
 Photo by Mikel Gerle. |
We put walls around our hearts, and we decide we can never really trust anyone.
This recent failed attempt at a relationship brought a lot of my own family stuff back. One reason it did was because his behaviors so echoed those of the worst of my own family, false pride, arrogance, the inability to say "I'm Sorry", and inability to offer reasonable self critiquing. Instead, all I got was a litany of what was wrong with me.
I admit, I am strong willed, stubborn and aggressive. Ironically, he was more of those things than me. Friend marveled in our presence at my quiet demeanor while with him. In the aftermath, I am reviewing all the reasons I have become these things, and they are fairly simple.
I come from people who had impossibly difficult lives, and had no family to support them or trust. Two women, both single mothers, both turned out into a hostile world, living lives of desperate poverty, with no form of assistance available except cunning and guile.
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My maternal grandmother, Nancy Garner Brackett, had six children, each by different men, not married to any of them. My mother told me that her mother was also born "out of wedlock." Later in the same conversation, she just blurted out, "Well, we're all bastards you know."
I recently found some old photos of "Granny Brackett." My cousins who remember her use one word to describe her, "mean."
 Marie Garren. |
My father's mother Marie, was a more refined woman, very "continental", from eastern Europe, highly educated, very beautiful, she embellished her own childhood, telling exaggerated stories to hide her childhood hell, being tossed around convents and orphanages all over Europe, beaten mercilessly by angry nuns, the only benefit was that she learned twelve languages. "Mamushka" was a gifted modiste, who could look at any piece of clothing and replicate it, even in a photograph. She made all of the clothes for society women in Tampa, including the most exquisite gowns for the balls and weddings of the very rich. My father was saddled with the title, "The Dressmakers Son," which haunted him most of his life.
He would tell stories of her, with no money or food in the house, barely enough work to pay the rent, turning away work from women who were not of a social class suitable to her sense of stature. "I sew for the best or I don't sew at all", as the tears would flow from her face. It was her way of keeping a shred of dignity in a world that had never wanted her, and that she found both baffling and frightening.
In my own collection of myths and stories about families and life, my favorite is the movie "Avalon" by Barry Levinson. It is a story about three generations of Kirchinski's living in America, the immigrants dream, and the living of it in the beautiful place called Baltimore. The story unfolds with a family that generally functions very well, supports each other, creates appropriate boundaries in the midst of internal conflicts. It is romanced a bit, but who would not want Sam for a father or a grandfather? Sam was simply grateful to be alive, living in America, glad to see his family grow strong and prosper.
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He could be the model for the grandfather I never had, because Marie packed up and left my grandfather when my father was three. He could have been the sawmill owner, Edward Ramsay, that my mother never saw or knew. Their absence from our lives made an indelible mark.
 Nancy Garner Brackett. |
There are no simplistic or simple "one size fits all" solutions, but children who grow up in single parent homes, where poverty is the constant wolf at the door, have more to struggle with in childhood and in life. They also miss a lot, particularly with regard to intimacy skills and self esteem.
What they learn is that relationships don't last, other people cannot be trusted, and "I'm not worth as much because one parent left me." If they get the double whammy of being left with an abusive parent, who takes out her (or his) resentments about being saddled with kids on their children, the child also learns, "No one really wants me, I must be bad."
Add the dynamics of being gay, male, and not skilled at passing for "butch" and you get some really self loathing young men, many of whom end up in West Hollywood.
The biggest crime of our time, and of the policies of our government since Ronald Reagan, has been the complete destruction of social programs that attempted to help children living in poverty. As more and more families disintegrate due to failing economic opportunities, these children will grow up hardened before the age of ten, realizing that no one cares for them, so why should they care either. They will be very vulnerable to all of the usual self destructive behaviors, alcohol, drugs, high risk sex, and the like.
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At 57, I am still uncovering aspects of the effects that both grandmother's poverty left in our family structure. We are a very fractious bunch, more a collection of "Lone Wolves" than a real family. After years of trying to keep these people together, I'm officially giving up. I just turned 57, and it is my birthday present to myself.
 Edward G Garren, age 8. |
I watch helplessly as the same conditions creep back into our once prosperous nation to crank out yet another generation of angry deprived people.
In the song "Eleanor Rigby", the Beatles and Ray Charles ask, "All the lonely people, where do they all come from?"
My answer, from pervasive and systematic poverty, which reduces human life to production units, and has no value for human life except production and exploitation.
Thank you Ronald Reagan, Roger Smith, George Bush and all the other people who became wealthy off the backs of the poor.
Merry Christmas to all of you.
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“MY ANGER HAS MEANT PAIN TO ME BUT IT HAS ALSO MEANT SURVIVAL,
AND BEFORE I GIVE IT UP I’M GOING TO BE SURE THAT THERE IS SOMETHING AT LEAST AS POWERFUL TO REPLACE IT ON THE ROAD TO CLARITY”
Audre Lourde
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Edward "Ed" Garren, MFT is a Family Therapist, justice activist, former West Hollywood City Council candidate, writer and sojourner. He is originally from the Tampa Bay area of central Florida. Ed has been published in the Los Angeles Times, Frontiers news magazine, and other books, including "Out of My Mind", a pictorial memoir by Kris Nelson. He is currently working on a book about Addiction in America. More information about Ed can be found at: www.edgarren.us